Political Education in Polarized Times

​Diana Hess became dean of the University of Wisconsin–Madison’s School of Education on August 1, 2015. Hess, only the ninth dean of the School of Education since its founding in 1930, came to the post after serving as senior vice president of the Spencer Foundation in Chicago since September 2011. Her first stint at UW-Madison began in 1999 when she joined the Department of Curriculum and Instruction as an assistant professor. She became an associate professor in 2005 and a full professor in 2009 before taking a leave from the university to work at Spencer. In 2015, Hess co-authored The Political Classroom: Evidence and Ethics in Democratic Education. Her research interests include the impact of school-based civic education programs on youth, political and civic engagement, and how students experience and learn from discussions of highly controversial political issues. A previous book, Controversy in the Classroom: The Democratic Power of Discussion, won the National Council for the Social Studies Exemplary Research Award in 2009.

Hess began her education career as a high school social studies teacher in Downers Grove, Illinois, in 1979. During her time there, she became president of the Downers Grove teachers’ union before working as the associate director of the Constitutional Rights Foundation Chicago from 1987–95. Hess earned her PhD from the University of Washington–Seattle in 1998. Hess also holds a master’s degree from the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign, and a bachelor’s degree from Western Illinois University.